Tsar Bomba Anniversary

A replica of the bomb that spanned five times the height of the Hiroshima nuke.

Rob Hardy

Silhouette Staff

The world recently experienced a notable anniversary of a fairly significant event not well-known to the average person today. That such things are forgotten by the larger populace, and not taught to newer generations, is also notable.

Fifty years ago, on Oct. 30, 1961, The USSR topped off years of nuclear testing with a dubious crowning achievement – the detonation of the largest thermonuclear bomb ever tested. Known as the Tsar Bomba, its name derived partially from the Russian tradition of aiming for grandeur, this 50 megaton atomic bomb was an important point in the timeline of the decades-long Cold War.

Though its aims were political and utilized scientific progress toward demonstrating Soviet might, the implications of humanity’s ability to both conceive of, and utilize, such a devastating weapon are the legacy of this historic milestone.

The “King of the bombs” was detonated approximately 4,200 metres above Novaya Zemlya, in the Russian Arctic. Exponentially more powerful than earlier bombs dropped on Japan during WWII, the height of the blast pierced the Earth’s mesosphere and blasted windows over 900 km away. With this intensity, third degree burns would be the reality for any person 100 km from ground zero and the bombs’ brightness was seen at a distance over 1,000 km away, not so surprising considering its power. As the blast’s impact circled the earth, it is not enough to say that this hydrogen bomb destroyed all flora and fauna within a vast radius, but that it also completely decimated the geography of the islands within this area as well.

This northern island was well-established as a huge military test site, and continued to see much activity for years to come, though, upon the decision to conduct this experiment, the resulting shock of the test’s magnitude and Soviet boldness halted the progress of further testing at least for a time. The world, and America specifically, were already on high alert as fears of further nuclear devastation ran high during the early 1960s. The Tsar Bomba was a confirming reminder that man was still definitely capable of creating weapons which not only served as strategic military arsenal, but that could completely annihilate large swaths of populated areas, leaving nothing but absolute destruction in their wake.

Having been to both Nagasaki and Hiroshima, it startles me to think of the ease with which those events, years earlier, were justified by many at the time, and the acceptance and eventual fading which have followed.  Understanding something about Japanese culture, which is still in evidence as they rebuild after this year’s catastrophe, it is the way of its people to face adversity and unspeakable tribulations with a kind of calmness, practicality and an unmatched fortitude, representative of its Buddhist roots.

As for the rest of us, I really don’t see much evidence that atomic events on the scale of such past atrocities have really transformed the way we interact with each other, and the larger society. To prove this point, one needs to simply witness a clip from a British television show circulating on Youtube which, incredibly, documents scores of Americans in New York who could not name the day, month, or even year of 9/11.  Though scored with canned laughter between responses, to see the rate at which even critical modern history is being forgotten these days is positively breathtaking.

To fully understand the significance of an event is not simply to understand its trivia, but to develop an appreciation for its context.  Though, studying history is an acquired taste which may take a long time to develop, it’s quite clear that there are patterns and parallels to our own times, as we begin to see that humans centuries ago were in many fundamental ways very similar to us today even though the mores and external dramas have changed.

There is the adage, often heard and survived by its wisdom, “those who don’t know their history are doomed to repeat it”. In fact, there are scientists today who study these cyclical patterns, hoping to shed light on where we are today in this larger picture. I also find it interesting that the word chosen was “doomed”; because as much as we’d like to think we have magically leapfrogged well-passed all of our ugliest evils, some of it relatively recent, after some critical examination one could reasonably conclude that, unfortunately, this still very much remains to be seen.